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From the 300 films in the 25th International Documentary Film festival i Amsterdam I have selected to watch six films in the first days of the festival. For the first tim since retiring I could select films during daytime, and I thoroughly enjoyed that. It was also nice that for most of them I saw the premiere that came with a Question and Answer session with directors and sometimes lead actors. Most impressive for me? Are you listening, a film on a family struggling to survive after their village was washed away by a cyclone in coast Bangladesh.

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I had a fabulous farewell retirement party on 18 January 2012 by IRC in The Hague . A party centre turned into an Amsterdam Jazz cafe, with a DJ with jazz on vinyl, a couple of nice speeches, and an All that Jazz publication from colleagues with their music choices for me. I had my mother (turning 88) and sister (turning 70) dancing! My daughter Mirjam and brother in law where also there.

I have listened all afternoon to Cor’s “Dick de Jong Tribute Eclectic Top Twenty” that was in the publication. He also emailed me his selection from Youtube with fantastic films. He is the one and only able to link all this music clips with his highlights from my career, even with links to my sabbatical leave blog from 2004 and 2005.

The playlist has great variety from all over the world, with some classic performances and events. I you are interested you can access it from You Tube.

It is from The Max Foundation that seeks to prevent child mortality with small-scale water projects in Bangladesh. Micro-sanitation, the combination of providing wells, latrines, and hygiene education is the most effective and efficient way to fight simple but lethal diseases like diarrhea and give children a future. The Max Foundation provides micro-sanitation in Bangladesh together with the local community.

Through a really simple reporting system I’ll be getting occasional news on progress in pictures and short films.

If you are interested to follow my example check out http://www.akvo.org and pick a project. Akvo is Esperanto for water.